machine bags, a roadtrip, and the counting machine short again

[scrounger d detector collector]

well folks, i yielded to the temptation again.after squeaking a profit last time i bought a machine bag.i said never again last time. bag was over 40 dollars short but ended up having enuf silver to barely cover it. i think i came out a 4 dollar winner.whew! well there i was in smalltownville il.visiting and i dont go that way.got a grand on me soooooooo.5 min til close.yes we have a 500 bag that came off the machine.GREAT BUT !!! no time to hand count it.and once again ended up being 493.00 instead of 500. yes a winner due to a few 90 per centers.but again.those of u who road trip often? WHEN PRESENTED WITH BAG FOR STATED VALUE.DO U ASK IF U CAN COUNT IT. ? I KEEP FINDING THAT ALL THE COINS I GET ARE ALWAYS SHORT AT LEAST A LITTLE. THIS CANT BE JUST HAPPENSTANCE. NOW GRANTED THERE WERE THREE FOREIGN COINS/TOKENS WHICH BRING TOTAL TO 494.50. AND I REALLY DONT MIND AS THEY FOOLED THE MACHINE AND I FIGURE THE ORIG DEPOSITOR GOT VALUE FOR THEM.BUT JUST SHORT STINKS. I THINK THE BANKS AND THE ARMORED COMPANY ARE PLAYING GAMES WITH EACH OTHER TRYING TO ...RIP EACH OTHER OFF.sorry its late.all caps.oops.i dont know for sure if the armored co gets the final say.saying to bank "bag #xxx was short 4.50 and we are debiting your account." obviously an option i dont have.so i guess i just gotta have even more guts.not bad enuf that im in a bank away from home where i dont even have an account asking a favor to buy coins.and now i gotta add " yes ill take that bag of coins,mind if i go over to the depositor desk and hand count it ? and by the way if its short or has foreign coin in it u will refund the difference to me in cash ,ok?" what are others doing?

 

[jim4silver]

Ed,

I actually prefer that they do not hand count. The banks where I have been able to get bags out of the machine would simply take the bag off and hand it to me. I like this because I fear that if they take the bag into the back of the bank and count it and find a bunch of walkers or franklins, they would grab them for themselves, maybe even the 90% kennedys if they knew about silver, etc. I did have one bank count the coins before they gave them to me, and it only had a bunch of 40%s. Every other time when not counted they had a few franklins, lots of 90%s and 40%s.

I have never counted all the coins to see if the bags were short, but in every coin machine bag I received I have scored big (an LJ style score), so I have not had to worry. I imagine they were all short somewhat because I found tokens and foreign coins, etc., in them each time (except the one where they hand counted).

Hope you got some 40%s out of there as well.

Jim

 

[GMan00001]

First off, yes the armored company counts the bag and credits/debits the bank for overages/shortages.

Secondly, I always take the bag as is and since I do almost exclusively bags (usually not halves though as they don't fill that often), I am usually a little short by junk that got sorted into the bag. Once in awhile I am over as well, just less frequently. It's just part of the game.

The coin machines themselves vary in their accuracy. I had one teller force a hand count since he said the machine at their bank was typically off 1-2%. In that particular case it saved me $1, but it took the guy 15 minutes to hand count the partial bag ($300 or so) because of the way he did it.


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If you are going to complain about being off a coin or two, PLEASE PLEASE don't buy the bags and stick to rolls (boxes or otherwise). I have had more banks turn me down from buying bags because somebody previously bought a bag from them and complained about it being off by $1-2. They said it just wasn't worth the hassle for them eventhough I told them I never complain.
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[scrounger d detector collector]

YES AS I THOUGHT .U CANT REALLY ASK TO COUNT IT. its bad enuf if they sell it to u.i was just wondering what experiances others are having.i told about my bad bag forty dollars short.thats 80 coins.if u all have been that lucky then good for u .if ur only short a few here and there.but if u keep doing this the day will come when u buy a bag thats significantly short.since i am too ADDICTED to this to quit.i was just wondering if there could be a polite and effective way to get a full count. G MAN,also if ur doing smaller coins its not as important. 80 halves is forty bucks.80 quarters only 20.dimes nickels and pennies less and less obviously.

 

[GMan00001]

YES AS I THOUGHT .U CANT REALLY ASK TO COUNT IT. its bad enuf if they sell it to u.i was just wondering what experiances others are having.i told about my bad bag forty dollars short.thats 80 coins.if u all have been that lucky then good for u .if ur only short a few here and there.but if u keep doing this the day will come when u buy a bag thats significantly short.since i am too ADDICTED to this to quit.i was just wondering if there could be a polite and effective way to get a full count. G MAN,also if ur doing smaller coins its not as important. 80 halves is forty bucks.80 quarters only 20.dimes nickels and pennies less and less obviously.

Usually I do smaller denoms, but I have done quite a few bags of halves (probably 20-30+) as well, most were last year. I think of those I had one bag that had an accurate count. Being short is just part of the game. The one thing that some banks will do is run the bag of halves through the machine one last time before they sell them. It does make the count more accurate, but not necessarily 100% accurate and there is always that opportunity to remove something from the bag though I have yet to experience that (with the exception of slugs and foreign coins which I didn't mind them removing, and yes I asked to look at what they removed).

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Let me adjust my comment above slightly, "PLEASE PLEASE don't buy a bag at the bank and then come back LATER and complain that it was short." They have no way to verify if you are telling the truth anymore.
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Personally, I prefer to just get the coins, leave, and take the risk.

 

[jim4silver]

YES AS I THOUGHT .U CANT REALLY ASK TO COUNT IT. its bad enuf if they sell it to u.i was just wondering what experiances others are having.i told about my bad bag forty dollars short.thats 80 coins.if u all have been that lucky then good for u .if ur only short a few here and there.but if u keep doing this the day will come when u buy a bag thats significantly short.since i am too ADDICTED to this to quit.i was just wondering if there could be a polite and effective way to get a full count. G MAN,also if ur doing smaller coins its not as important. 80 halves is forty bucks.80 quarters only 20.dimes nickels and pennies less and less obviously.

Usually I do smaller denoms, but I have done quite a few bags of halves (probably 20-30+) as well, most were last year. I think of those I had one bag that had an accurate count. Being short is just part of the game. The one thing that some banks will do is run the bag of halves through the machine one last time before they sell them. It does make the count more accurate, but not necessarily 100% accurate and there is always that opportunity to remove something from the bag though I have yet to experience that (with the exception of slugs and foreign coins which I didn't mind them removing, and yes I asked to look at what they removed).

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Let me adjust my comment above slightly, "PLEASE PLEASE don't buy a bag at the bank and then come back LATER and complain that it was short." They have no way to verify if you are telling the truth anymore.
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Personally, I prefer to just get the coins, leave, and take the risk.

How do you guys get the tellers to give you the bags from the machines so often? I only have one bank here that will give me the bags from the machine (a few branches of the same bank). I have tried other banks, and the only ones who agree to are the ones where I dump my halves (I know I don't want those).

I always hear (we have to sell them to the fed) or some other such answer. I have tried to tell them how they are saving money and time by giving them to me and not having to package them up for Brinks.

Machine bags have been great for me when I got them. Never a skunk. You just have to make sure that you are not buying a bag where a CRHer is dumping rejects.

40 coins light is alot of dough, but once you leave the bank you cannot go back and complain since they won't be able to verify. If you are concerned, ask them to count them for you. I would just take my chances though since I don't want anyone touching the coins until I get them home.


Jim